Nakamura, Akira creator text xu| 2012 continuing ng p.239-259. This article addresses three related issues about the role and functions of government in East Asia in general and Japan in particular. First, it tries to describe the important function of national bureaucracy in Japanﾒs economic growth, a development mode that has often been labelled ﾑstatismﾒ or ﾑadministrative centred governmentﾒ. The first section delineates how this model became entrenched in the country. Second, the article highlights several reform attempts to alter this basic configuration of Japanese government power, through efforts to dilute the control of bureaucracy and replace it with an ﾑexecutive centred governmentﾒ. The second section dwells on this transition and evaluates the results of different reform efforts. Finally, the article examines the effect of the disasters in March 2011 on these aspects of the countryﾒs leadership, noting that the incumbent party leaders had little faith in the wisdom of mandarins, and planned to resolve the ongoing crises by themselves. The final section of the article deals with the schisms and fissures of the interface between electived members and non-elected administrators within the context of Japanﾒs cri Public administration International Review of Administrative Sciences 180718